U.S. human rights report documents China's genocide in Xinjiang | Hacker News Reader

U.S. human rights report documents China's genocide in Xinjiang

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81 pointslawrenceyan47 comments

So... I guess we can expect some slaps on the wrist sanctions against a few government officials and call it a day soon. Our true north companies like Nike and Apple, etc., will, of course, announce pulling out too because there is no way they would want to be associated with doing business with such a regime either and Nike will hire Uyghurs for their ads in defiance.

The US government plainly said that they don't sanction high-level leaders when the Khashoggi Report identified Mohammed bin Salman's culpability in that murder.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/03/politics/biden-administration...

The lesson we can take away from this is that if you want to murder someone, start climbing the ladder of elected (or monarchical) office. No wonder Trump could confidently say he could kill someone on 5th Avenue and not lose a voter.

Heavy on allegations, very light on proof, as usual.

Where is the actual report? On iOS Safari at least, the linked state.gov URL does not seem to link to the body of the report and only briefly mentions Uyghurs twice.

It's structured by country. You need to go to the Location dropdown and select China to see the actual report.

Thanks to you and Aunche! For me that meant using the red sliders hovering button on the bottom right.

The interface is kind of confusing. On the side you can selection the country of interest:

https://www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-...

I’m critical of China’s treatment of Uyghurs, but also critical of the govt. and major media’s breathless approval of Adrian Zenz’ questionable work.

Points I found most valuable from the article:

> Introducing the report, Secretary of State Tony Blinken said President Biden would put human rights at the center of U.S. foreign policy.

> The report finds that more than one million mainly Muslim Uyghurs were held in detention camps in China’s Xinjiang region, with some subjected to forced sterilization, rape, forced labor and torture.

> He also acknowledged that the U.S. had work to do at home on human rights, including in combating systemic racism, but would face those challenges in the daylight, unlike autocratic countries.

The "million in detention" claim is based on Adrian Zenz' questionable work, where he took the percentage of people per village in camps from 8 Uyghur testimonies (totaling ~2000 in camps), and extrapolated out to the entire region.

I have no doubt the police state in Xinjiang is brutal to my Western conception, but given the recent history for the US in particular to compile dodgy dossiers filled with "encouraged" testimony from a handful of sources, I'm skeptical and would absolutely not take the million figure as fact.

What will the report achieve? Will China put an end to their Uyghur genocide now?

I'm surprised by the number of comments here purporting to call this information fake, or attempting to redirect the blame toward the US. This has been well documented by multiple sources for nearly two years. The world has many problems but genocide is decidedly one of the worst.

This news let me believe that the westerns don't have common sense, brain washed and stupid. According to stats, the Uyghur has 10.17 millions in 2010. And after "genocide", the Uyghur population size has dramatic decreased to 12.71 millions. I used to believe that the US is the lighthouse of human civilization, now I think the US are full of clowns, they don't like Muslim, they don't like Chinese, but they like Chinese Musilm.

The fact you are cognizant of the population growth is telling. Let me guess, this population growth is a problem to you.

Your comment is another typical US arrogance and ignorance reply. You know nothing, but you pretend that you know everything.

You've broken the HN guidelines. Other people breaking the rules does not make that ok.

Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here.

If you'd like more explanation, there is plenty at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26652363 and the links back from there.

You've broken the HN guidelines. Other people breaking the rules does not make that ok.

Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here.

If you'd like more explanation, there is plenty at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26652363 and the links back from there.

I wonder why Russia and China are enlisted. Is it because the gov wants to see this result or Blinken's team is doing the research with a high bias?

AFAIK, the main issue of China is the high price of housing, which Chinese gov is trying to control. And these researchers just turn a blind eye to it.

I found this hard to read. Principally I was looking for sources and I found a lot of statements with no easy footnoting of sources.

After looking at the Grayzone/ModerateRebels video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZkxaEC1xjY about the very odd and weak claims about China's behavior in this regard I was hoping that some more diverse, specific and accurate sources would be present in e.g. https://www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-...

If only a fraction of what Blumethal claims in the video is correct then this is singularly unhelpful and definitely smells a bit.

I look forward to the call for sanctions on the USA by the USA, backed up by appropriate force to support the workers in the gig economy suffering in the same way as the ones in China cited at the end of the report:

Workers in the gig economy were considered contract workers and not under the protections of the labor law. There were reports of app delivery drivers injured or killed on the job. On September 9, the magazine Renwu exposed how online platform algorithms created dangerous conditions for delivery drivers, including by shortening delivery times and issuing penalties for delays. The report prompted two major delivery firms to extend delivery times and reduce penalties for late deliveries.

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